Fire in hotel on Georgia's Black Sea coast kills 11

TBILISI (Reuters) - A fire in a hotel in Georgia’s Black Sea resort city of Batumi killed 11 people, an official said on Saturday.

“Unfortunately, 11 people were killed and 19 were injured in a fire,” Giorgi Gakharia, Georgia’s interior minister, told reporters.

The fire started late on Friday on one floor of the Leogrand hotel and spread quickly. Batumi is about 360 km from Tbilisi, Georgia’s capital.

The hotel has been scheduled to be a venue for the Miss Georgia beauty contest on Sunday. According to officials, no participants of the contest, who were staying at the hotel, were injured in the blaze.